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Person of Interest Wiki:Spoilers and Advance Publicity
Posting spoilers and sharing of publicized advance information about the show are two of the most contentious issues on any fan website, and not everyone enjoys spoilers. To keep the harmony and assure everyone's enjoyment of each episode of Person of Interest, no spoilers are allowed on the Person of Interest Wiki. This includes posting of spoilers in articles, on message walls, in edit summaries, on your personal blog, on the forum, or in the chat room. At no time does any user have the right to spoil the enjoyment of an episode by another user. Spoilers A spoiler is defined as any information about an upcoming episode, prior to broadcast, which reveals specific details of the episode. Spoilers may include, but are not limited to outcomes of episodes, story arcs or plot lines, previously unknown identities of characters, upcoming appearances of actors or characters, or occurrence of anticipated events. Episode titles and broadcast dates are not considered spoilers, but pretty much any other advance information is. Enjoyment of an episode depends on the gradual unfolding of the story, and knowledge of spoilers can lessen a viewer's enjoyment of an episode. Users and readers have varying degrees of tolerance for spoilers and advance knowledge, which should be respected at all times. Moreover, spoilers often come from unreliable sources, set-side rumors, early drafts of scripts used for casting, or fans watching production, and frequently prove to be inaccurate or incorrect. Bear in mind: scenes are rewritten, edited or cut altogether throughout production. Much of what claims to be spoilers can't, and shouldn't be trusted. Spoilers are time sensitive and time limited. Once the current episode is broadcast in the Eastern time zone of the United States (10:00 pm ET/7:00 pm PT), the content of an episode is no longer considered a spoiler. Users in other time zones should not expect content of an episode to be withheld until they can see it, and are expected to exercise personal responsibility for what they might learn by reading the wiki, including the forum and chat room, prior to viewing an episode. Early downloaders are expected to respect the 10:00 pm ET timeline before posting about or discussing the episode. Spoilers in Episode, Character and Cast Articles Spoilers are not always accurate, and spoiler sites are not reliable sources for upcoming events and appearances. To that end, the episode pages (overview, summary, POI and cast/crew) for each upcoming episode will be locked until shortly before broadcast on the U.S. east coast. The admin team will add the title, broadcast date and a summary of the episode from the CBS press release. Articles about new characters should not be started until the episode where they appear concludes (we reserve the right to delete these articles if started early), and character, actor and crew pages should not be updated to include upcoming episodes until they are broadcast. The best source of information is the broadcast. Advance Publicity CBS frequently publicizes limited details regarding episodes in advance, particularly during ratings sweeps periods (November, February and May.) Advance publicity may include previews, interviews with cast or producers, press releases, photographs or clips, and interviews in print media. In addition, actors, producers and writers increasingly take to Twitter and Facebook to discuss what's coming. Advance publicity is generally reliable, generally fairly vague, and may be discussed with discretion on the forum and on user message walls. A few common-sense tips should be kept in mind regarding advance publicity: * Previews can be particularly fun to discuss, and are often ambiguous. Discussion of a preview is acceptable on the forum, on the thread for the episode in which the preview appears. However, it is not a license to blast spoilers gained from other sources. * Social media is a hot-bed of spoilers. An actor may want you to know what he or she is doing, but that doesn't make it acceptable to spoil other users on the wiki with your new information. Be very careful about what you share from actor/writer/crew social media accounts. * Events such as advance screenings, where users may have had the opportunity to view an upcoming episode may be discussed, but the content of the episode itself is considered a spoiler and subject to the restrictions on spoilers above. * Users often wish to post the content of press releases and advance publicity in episode and character articles before they are broadcast. This is not appropriate use of advance publicity; episode and character articles should not be updated until the episode concludes in the Eastern time zone. * Links to publicity material, which give readers a choice to learn what a site contains, are acceptable on the forum. Text of copyrighted or other spoiler material should not be posted, and will be removed. A good rule of thumb for advance knowledge is consideration: consider what most viewers would want to know and when in doubt, keep what you know to yourself.